Breed Specific Legislation (BSL), Bad Breeds

[DigitalDogInTheHouse]

Reprinted from a column previously available in local newspapers.

Why There Are No Bad Breeds

Recently a friend of mine commented on not allowing her son to go play at a friend’s house because they had a dangerous dog. Certainly concerned, I asked her to elaborate. She explained that the people had a Pit Bull. She knew nothing more about the dog and only understood that the dog was a Pit Bull because someone else told her it was.

This brings up a serious concern to all dog lovers. First off, dogs, like people, are not born bad. Of course, there might be the rare individual lacking some crucial element that despite all the proper supports still manages to be antisocial or criminal but they are too rare to be considered.

No breed is inherently dangerous. Some breeds may attract people who intend to encourage the dog to misbehave or who will neglect the dog so that it is fearful and reactive but even this is not the same thing, since virtually any dog with a similar experience will respond the same way with fear and eventually, aggression.

Some suggest that certain breeds should just be done away with. If that solution were viable then one would only need to get rid of all the breeds with dangerous individuals and the problem would be resolved. Then someone would need to judge whether a mixed breed dog was enough of the dangerous breed to be a danger itself. Is the problem obvious now?

Legislation exists in many places attempting to label dogs based on their parentage as vicious or dangerous and limiting the rights of the people who own them. This is a dangerous idea as the direction that history indicates is that once those breeds were established as “bad” then the system could easily continue to add breeds to that list until virtually everything is labeled as dangerous.

Instead, a wiser approach that is also more in line with the civil liberties our founding fathers envisioned, and is much easier to enforce, would be the designation of dangerous dog. Regardless of its parentage or history, some benchmark whether it be severity of an attack or number of bites, can be established to designate a dog as dangerous. At that point, whatever fines or consequences assessed is deemed as appropriate by the governing body. This approach protects the safety of a community in a way that a broad sweeping generalization does not. For example, my neighbor with the “dangerous” Pit Bull that has never hurt anyone is mandated as dangerous with restrictions while my badly tempered Dachshund could go forth and do whatever damage he might, simply because he doesn’t look like a Pit Bull?

Clearly, this subject is another that would be best served by the future Animal Control Department of Hawkins County. Please be sure to ask your local commissioners when they intend to address this vitally needed service to our community. Until such structure is in place, Hawkins County is not able to enforce even the legislation already passed by the State of Tennessee for a statewide leash law, making all efforts to date rather moot in our fair county.